14-10-2016
We arrived in Budapest capital of Hungary on 13th Oct 2016, took rest. As this is my 2nd visit to Budapest, we thought of visiting neighboring country Slovakia, so on 14th, early morning we left for Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, a 2 hours drive to cover 210 km and returned in the evening.
Bratislava was originally settled in the late Stone Age by the Neolithic people. During Romans, they built a military camps here, remains of one of which is in Gerulata in Rusovce. Bratislava appears in written records in the 10th Century when it was a part of the Moravian Empire but it was annexed by Hungary in the 11th Century. From 1536 to 1783, Bratislava was the capital of Hungary known as Pozsony. During the Plague pandemic in 1711, Bratislava’s population decimated, but reached its zenith in mid of 18th century under the patronage of Empress Marie Theresa. Bratislava was besieged by the Napoleon’s troops in 1809, the castle was burnt down in 1811. Until 1918, the city was a resort area of Austria-Hungary and in 1919 the city was annexed to the Czechoslovak Republic. During WW2 a quasi-Nazi government was established in Slovakia, an armed uprising against this government in 1944 crushed. After the fall of communism in 1989, Bratislava restored its Old town and soon became a popular visitor destination. When Czechoslovakia split in 1993, Bratislava became the Slovak capital and joined the EU in 2004.
Slovakia’s capital since the country’s independence in 1993, Bratislava is a mosaic of illustrious history, a medieval and Gothic old town, baroque palaces commissioned by Hungarian nobles, and the crowning castle, rebuilt to Renaissance finery.
